Friday, March 29. 2013
vCloud Automation Center Videos
VMware vCloud Automation Center (also known as vCAC) is comprised of three modules: Virtual Resource Manager (VRM), External Cloud Manager (ECM) and Physical Resource Manager (PRM).
Together, these modules provide an enterprise-wide system for provisioning virtual, cloud and physical machines and for comprehensively managing the machine lifecycle from user request and administrative approval through decommissioning and resource reclamation, while dramatically improving resource cost control and management. Built-in customization and extensibility features also make vCloud Automation Center a highly flexible means for customizing machine configurations as needed and integrating machine provisioning and management with other enterprise-critical systems.
VMware vCloud Automation Center Documentation
Thursday, March 28. 2013
New Technical White Paper - VMware vCloud Director Infrastructure Resiliency Case Study
VMware vCloud Director enables enterprise organizations to build secure private clouds that dramatically increase datacenter efficiency and business agility. Coupled with VMware vSphere, vCloud Director delivers cloud computing for existing datacenters by pooling vSphere virtual resources and delivering them to users as catalog-based services. It helps users build agile infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud environments that greatly accelerate the time to market for applications and the responsiveness of IT organizations.
Resiliency is a key aspect of any infrastructure—it is even more important in IaaS solutions. This technical paper was developed to provide additional insight and information regarding the use of VMware vSphere PowerCLI to automate the recovery of a vCloud Director–based infrastructure. In particular, it focuses on automation of the recovery steps for vCloud Director 1.5–managed VMware vSphere vApp workloads.
The recovery of management components can be achieved using VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager and will not be discussed. It is already available in the original VMware vCloud Director Infrastructure Resiliency Case Study. vSphere PowerCLI is a powerful command-line tool that enables users to automate all aspects of vSphere management, including network, storage, virtual machine, guest operating system (OS) and more. Included since the release of version 5.0.1, vSphere PowerCLI introduced support for vCloud Director.
vSphere PowerCLI is distributed as a Microsoft Windows PowerShell snap-in and includes more than 300 PowerShell cmdlets, along with documentation and examples.This technical paper discusses the use of PowerShell and PowerCLI to automate the recovery of vCloud Director resource clusters.
Resiliency is a key aspect of any infrastructure—it is even more important in IaaS solutions. This technical paper was developed to provide additional insight and information regarding the use of VMware vSphere PowerCLI to automate the recovery of a vCloud Director–based infrastructure. In particular, it focuses on automation of the recovery steps for vCloud Director 1.5–managed VMware vSphere vApp workloads.
The recovery of management components can be achieved using VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager and will not be discussed. It is already available in the original VMware vCloud Director Infrastructure Resiliency Case Study. vSphere PowerCLI is a powerful command-line tool that enables users to automate all aspects of vSphere management, including network, storage, virtual machine, guest operating system (OS) and more. Included since the release of version 5.0.1, vSphere PowerCLI introduced support for vCloud Director.
vSphere PowerCLI is distributed as a Microsoft Windows PowerShell snap-in and includes more than 300 PowerShell cmdlets, along with documentation and examples.This technical paper discusses the use of PowerShell and PowerCLI to automate the recovery of vCloud Director resource clusters.
New Technical White Paper - VMware VXLAN Deployment Guide
Organizations worldwide have gained significant efficiency and flexibility in their datacenters as a direct result of deploying VMware server virtualization solutions. Although compute has been virtualized, network and security technologies in datacenters have struggled to keep pace with the innovations.
Many VMware customers are now looking to implement a network virtualization solution that brings flexibility to datacenter networks. Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network (VXLAN), part of VMware vCloud Networking and Security, addresses the current networking challenges. This document offers detailed deployment guidelines and step-by-step instructions on how to build VXLAN-based datacenter networks.
Many VMware customers are now looking to implement a network virtualization solution that brings flexibility to datacenter networks. Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network (VXLAN), part of VMware vCloud Networking and Security, addresses the current networking challenges. This document offers detailed deployment guidelines and step-by-step instructions on how to build VXLAN-based datacenter networks.
A VXLAN-based network virtualization solution addresses the following key challenges that exist in the traditional physical network:
- Limited number of isolated layer 2 (L2) networks (VLAN – 4096)
- Inability to change the physical network configuration on demand
- Limited L2 diameter (because of Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) limitations) that restricts pooling of compute resources available across the datacenter
For more details on the VXLAN-based network virtualization solution and various design consideration details, refer to VMware Network Virtualization Design Guide. This document is for both vSphere and network administrators. It provides step-by-step configuration instructions for the following two scenarios:
- A brand-new VXLAN network design spanning two compute clusters
- A migration of an existing two-cluster deployment from a standard VLAN to a VXLAN network
Tuesday, March 26. 2013
Latest Fling from VMware Labs - View Pool Manager
View Pool Manager is a Fling that allows VMware View administrators to easily manage users across desktop pools and security groups.
One of the biggest challenges VMware View administrators face in large deployments is desktop pool maintenance. Commonly each desktop pool has Active Directory security groups with the number of users a given desktop pool will support. As employees leave/join the organization, security groups require maintenance to ensure the number of users in each group correctly match the amount of desktops available. VMware View Pool Manager allows VMware View administrators to easily manage users across desktop pools and security groups for large deployments.
- This tool allow administrators to bind an Active Directory connection and specify:
- How many users there should exist per group (based on VMware View pool size)
- Floating or Persistent deployment
- Source Security Groups (all users to be distributed to pools)
- Destination Security Groups (All groups the users may be assigned to)
This tool help VMware View administrators to save hours of work adding, removing and maintaining users, desktop pools and security groups while ensuring each security group does not hold more users than the amount of desktops pool assigned to a given VMware View desktop pool.
Download View Pool Manager
This fling was created by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net
Sunday, March 24. 2013
Video - Run Workflows from the vSphere Web Client
Beyond the initial installation, operators can also take advantage of the automation capabilities of vCenter Orchestrator because of its new integration with the vSphere Web Client and the vCenter Single Sign On component. Operators can run workflows from the vSphere inventory browser in just a couple of clicks. Based on the object from which it is run, a workflow's input parameters also get populated automatically to save time and eliminate errors. Operators can run multiple workflows concurrently, or schedule them as recurring or future off-hour tasks. For large organizations, administrators can allow different groups of operators to have access to different categories of workflows.
Saturday, March 23. 2013
Video - Horizon View HTML Access vs PCoIP
This video is recorded by Gunnar Berger, it shows the difference between Horizon View HTML Access and PCoIP. The new HTML Access is part off the recently released feature-pack. It allows users to connect to virtual desktops from their Web browsers without having to install Horizon View Client software on their client systems. The HTML Access Agent, which runs on Horizon View desktops, is the component that enables users to use HTML Access to connect to their desktops. You must install the Remote Experience Agent with the HTML Access Agent on the desktops that you want to be accessed via HTML Access.